1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of oil reclamation devices. More specifically the present invention relates to a voraxial separator and analyzer apparatus for separating and reclaiming oil from water, such as in the aftermath it of a tanker ship oil spill, and for separating and reclaiming pure water from industrial contaminants. The apparatus includes a composite fluid passing tube containing a first set of rotation vanes referred to as rotation acceleration vanes connected to vane rotation means. The set of rotation acceleration vanes is oriented to deliver angular acceleration to a composite fluid within the tube about the longitudinal axis of the tube to a given rotational speed at which the component fluids making up the composite fluid separate into radially stratified layers according to their densities. A second set of rotation vanes referred to as rotation maintenance vanes is inventively provided within the tube downstream of the rotation acceleration vanes which preferably provide just enough angular force to sustain the rotation of the stratified component fluids against the force of friction at the tube wall and against fluid viscosity, and thus to prevent turbulence resulting from transition to a lower angular speed which would result in loss of the fluid stratification. A second key feature of the present invention is the provision of an analyzer system including an integrated package uniting two motors with two systems. A feedback loop in communication with a computer monitor and a method of spinning fluid are provided. A tachometer is connected to the set of rotation maintenance vanes to measure fluid rotation rate, and is wired to the feedback loop.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Millions of gallons of precious fuel oil are obtained from wells each year, and yet great quantities of sludge and water often mix with this fuel oil and must be removed to make the oil usable. In some areas of the world drinking water is in short supply and must be separated from contaminants. Major sources of drinking water contamination are chemicals and particulate matter mingling with cleaning water used during metal finishing and other chemical etching processes. Separation of such contaminants represents an economic burden and more often a loss of precious drinking water. In Europe the rising cost of water and water processing plants which use existing purification methods such as the ion exchange systems has become a major concern for government and industry alike. Industrial wastes and fuels entering water supplies have also had profound environmental and economic impacts on coastal fishing grounds. In order to rapidly purify, capture and store pure water, and to recover lost fuel and other recyclable contaminants, the water and contaminant mixtures must be pumped from storage reservoirs and separated. A voraxial separation system capable of achieving such separation is disclosed generally in U.S. Pat. No. 5,084,189 issued to the present applicant.
Many of the specifications of the present separator are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,084,189, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. A limitation of this prior separator, however, has been the prospect of turbulence within the flow stream following angular acceleration and radial component stratification, resulting from transition to lower rotational speed, causing some intermixing of stratified layers.
It is thus an object of the present invention to provide a composite fluid separation apparatus which separates a composite fluid medium consisting of one or more component fluids including contaminants of different densities by centrifugal acceleration and stratification of the medium, which is induced by forces imparted by a set of rotation acceleration vanes to cause the medium to spin axially within a composite fluid passing tube, creating a force vortex action on the medium body which in turn causes the spun medium to separate into its component fluids and contaminants at different radii corresponding to their respective densities, the separated medium being transported axially along the cylindrical pipe and separated by radially positioned pipe intakes. The lighter fluid is forced by free vortex action and by Bernoulli pressure forces into a tight cylindrical flow along the central axis of the spinning medium, while the heavier particles are spun along the outer radii of the spinning medium.
It is another object of the present invention to provide such an apparatus which, in addition to voraxially accelerating and stratifying component fluids for independent removal from the flow stream, maintains the necessary stratification speed against deceleration turbulence until component fluid removal is accomplished.
It is another object of the present invention to provide such an apparatus which automatically monitors and controls the rotation acceleration and maintenance vane speeds necessary to cause and maintain fluid separation through use of sensors and a feedback loop tied to a computer.
It is another object of the present invention to provide such an apparatus which includes sensory and detection means to monitor the concentration of contaminants in both the contaminant take off pipe and the fluid take off pipe.
It is another object of the present invention to provide such an apparatus which provides a method of monitoring the amount of unseparated fluid within the different radially separated layers, and to compute feedback signals to correctly determine and control the rotation speed of the separator and achieve maximum separation results.
It is another object of the present invention to provide such a method of monitoring the amount of unseparated fluids and to compute a feedback signal in order to control a bleed valve and thus to modify the density of the medium by injection of air into the medium before the separation. The air stream serves to modify the density of the centrally separated fluid stream and thus to minimize the loss of the higher density fluids to the central stream.
It is another object of the present invention to provide such an apparatus which efficiently separates the various components of contaminated fluid, such as water mixed with mud, oil and slimes, and to differentiate these components into their various densities, so that they can be removed from the flow stream, for the purposes of recovery and removal of the components.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide such an apparatus which relies on a computerized analyzer system that efficiently separates the various components of contaminated fluid for the purposes of recovery and removal of the components.
It is finally an object of the present invention to provide is such an apparatus which relies on a feedback loop with a computerized analyzer system that efficiently determines the concentrations of the various components of contaminated fluid for the purposes of recovery and/or removal of the components.
The foregoing and other objects of the invention are achieved by provision of an axial flow type pump for separating immiscible fluids having different specific gravities and a discharge manifold fluid connected to the fluid pump for drawing of the fluid having the heavier specific gravity; a sensor attached to the inlet flow into the separator; a sensor attached to the outlet flow of the separator; a sensor attached to the central light fluid take off manifold; a signal generating means from the sensors; means for transporting the signal generated in the sensors to a signal processing analyzer, and computing a feedback control signal; means for using the computed feedback signal to accurately control the speed of the separator and the amount of air intake into the separator.
The present invention is an apparatus for the efficient and consistent separation of the components of a fluid with a built in integrated analyzer for determining the concentration of each component of the separated fluid. The purpose of the invention is to separate unwanted components of the fluid by means of a voraxial separator and to analyze the separated components thereof with a complete integrated control system. The present invention has the advantages of an integrated and complete system that embodies all of the elements of the analyzer and the voraxial separator in one unit. The apparatus consists of a voraxial separator of unique design, which relies on the free rotation of a fluid rather than the forced rotation of a fluid, and thus is not subject to the various hydrodynamic limitations of current centrifugal separators on the market, the apparatus also consists of a sensor probe, where the sensor probe relies on the varying scatter fields of electromagnetic radiation by density variations of the probe; a means of receiving the electromagnetic radiation through fiber-optic cables; and a means of computing the density field of the fluid at a given cross section; and a motor controller means for adequately controlling the separation rate of the voraxial separator. One distinguishing design of the present apparatus from the prior art is the use of specially designed guiding surfaces and specially shaped vanes that propel and control the centrifugal flow of the fluid during the separation stage.